In recent years, pitchers have dominated the game and this season it’s no different. A lot of people might say it’s because of the end of the steroids era, but I’ve always thought that banning steroids is not the reason for pitching success.

Hitters were not the only ones using steroids during the steroids era, as pitchers too, wanted an “edge” in the competition.

Today, in ESPN’s Buster Olney column, he says that players like Cody Ross and Chipper Jones are convinced that the infamous cut fastball is a big reason why pitching is dominating the game.

“Everybody is throwing a cutter these days,” Ross said. The cut fastball, or cutter, is the pitch that made Mariano Rivera so famous, and made him one of the most dominant pitchers in the Majors right now.”

The cutter is a fastball-type pitch with a late break towards the gloved hand of the pitcher. Most hitters recognize it like it was a fastball but then it breaks approaching the plate. Two of the most dominant starters in the Majors throw it, Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, so I’m sure it’s not a coincidence.

To give you a different view of the situation I talked to former professional Pitcher Miguel Chavez (nephew of former Giants hurler Nestor Chavez). He told me that in his first Rookie League season he struggled mostly because he only know how to throw the 4-seam fastball. The 4-seam fastball is the conventional none-movement fastball, but hitters are able to adjust to it real fast.

His pitching coach taught him to throw the 2-seam fastball. The 2-seam fastball is a fastball with late sinking action, but he said he became a really dominant pitcher when he learned how to throw the “cutter”.

Thanks to that pitch he got called to play in the States, unfortunately he got injured in his first year in the States and was given his unconditional release after that.

When I met him at a local University Venezuela, I was just a regular left handed pitcher with nothing to offer but a flat high 70’s MPH 4-seamer a regular slider and a very good curveball, but then he became my pitching guru.

Nowadays, he’s not only my pitching mentor, but also one of my best friends. He told me that if I wanted to dominate the game I had to learn how to throw a 2-seamer or a cutter.

After a couple of months of working with him, I learned how to throw both pitches, and even though my fastball barely reached 80MPH on occasions, I became one of the most dominant pitchers in the league.

I even got the chance to beat one of the toughest universities in Venezuela, where I went 7.2 innings and allowing just two runs, all with the help of the cutter.

So if you ask me, that cutter is one of the reasons why pitchers are dominating the game this season.

Image by Keith Allison under the Creative Commons License.